Substantiality
by Blackrose Kitsune
Summary: In regards to forever, a few months bodes a very insignificant time. In regards to human mortality, a few months may not be soon enough. So, when does time become truly substantial? How long can one truly be expected to wait for a loved one to return?
1. Substantiality

_**Substantiality**_

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"I see people in the world throw away their lives lusting after things… never able to satisfy their desires… falling deep into despair and tormenting themselves…"

The ground swims before his eyes, an eclectic sea of red and brown meshing harshly. For a moment he has to think about the state of things: was it the wind around him howling in such guttural disparity, or was that the sound of his own breathing? Had the earth been seized up in the throngs of a sudden, violent earthquake, or was it his own miserably trembling limbs shaking that left the earth quaking?

"Even _if_ they get what they want, how long will they be able to enjoy it?"

He shakes his head slowly, a pendulum-like movement that sends his stomach into matching fits of motion. The sudden swoop in his gut makes him dry heave, an action he hurriedly covers with an exaggerated cough. A shuddering inhalation follows.

"For one heavenly pleasure — just _one_ — they suffer ten torments of Hell, binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone…"

A harsh gust of wind rips angrily over the land dredging up a thick, nearly unbreathable miasma of sand-congealed air. A spray of loose sand and debris pelts him, leaves him veiled in a thin layer of dust and grime. He pays it no mind. After all, what was a little sand and grime on top off the blood? What did it really matter?

"Such people are like monkeys—" A mutinous laugh follows the words, a hysterical noise bordering lunacy. The wind continues to rip at the land with boundless ferocity and his laugh joins its mournful howl until inexorably, the two entities merge, forming a single, melancholic harmony.

"—Like monkeys…" he repeats in monotone, his fingers convulsing against the bloodied ground, groping desperately for some sort of handhold; some sort of strength to cling to. "—Frantically grasping for the moon in the water —" _Anything_ to keep his mind from slipping, something to keep his sanity grounded and his brain from treading quicksand. But despite his efforts, he can not get his nails to dig in deep enough; his grasp on reality was leaving him just as steadily as the loose earth was slipping between his bruised fingers. The harder he pressed the dirt into his hands, the harder he struggled to cling to substance, the faster it trickled away. "—And then falling into a whirlpool."

As the words leave his lips the winds die down and for a moment the world becomes utterly silent, unbearably silent. He shakes his head again, a mechanical gesture at best, and stumbles in slight delirium to his feet. The hair on the back of his neck prickles, but he is well aware that he is being watched; three pairs of eyes are on his turned back, are watching him. He knows this without his primal, bodily instincts telling him so. As well, he knows that those three pairs of eyes are undoubtedly waiting for him to make his next move.

He steadies himself, braces himself for a moment against the harsh wind that dances its ravaging dance once more across the God forsaken landscape, and mumbles a barely audible:

"…How endlessly those caught up in the Floating world suffer…"

Then, with three pairs of eyes at his back he shows them what they are waiting for, makes his next move — walks away.

---

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**_Author's Ramblings:_ **The initial idea: "What's a few more months waiting?" In regards to forever, a few months bode a very short, insignificant time. In regards to unaccountability and human mortality, a few months may bode not soon enough. So, when does time become truly substantial? 

How long can one truly expect to wait for a loved one's return?

Not wholly sure where I'm going with this, but I've got the gist of it. One or two more chapters at most. For those of you familiar with my current WIP, _Enigma_, this is a sort of reprieve. I'm letting the muse breath and come back naturally.

All names welcome at the door with honest opinions intact. So long as they are _honest_, I don't care what they are.

Blackrose


	2. Continuity

_**Substantiality**_

_---_

_II. Continuity_

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_He steadies himself, braces himself for a moment against the harsh wind that dances its ravaging dance once more across the God forsaken landscape, and mumbles a barely audible:_

_"…How endlessly those caught up in the Floating world suffer…"_

_Then, with three pairs of eyes at his back, he shows them what they are waiting for, makes his next move — walks away._

… … …

A somber show of continuity sees day turn to night, sees light fade to gradual all-encompassing darkness; sees the last flicker of light flee from a dieing soul's eyes as its very essence drifts away into whatever comes next for it. That same unchanging, ever-reliable continuity sees the continuance of the twenty-four hour day; the seven-day week… sees so much and is responsible for all the constants in life. The miracle of continuity is no small wonder. Not only does it change things so fluidly; meld entities so flawlessly and completely, but it does so with a natural intent so slow to change that unless one actually steps back and observes things as they are, the change is not immediately apparent.

… … …

A season had passed since that night — the night he walked away into the bloodstained horizon without so much as a single fleeting glance back at those watching him, those he walked away from. The leaves had fallen; gone from the world in a final sensual frenzy of majestic reds and yellows before acquiescing to the whiles of ice-laced and winter-imminent winds and departing this world. With winter the land fell into hibernation, intermittent death, and just as the world died, so too had his grasp on reality. And in time, their hopes for his return had died, too.

Unlike the world that reawakened around them, however, that idyllic hope remained dead — buried beneath the permafrost, laid to rest. Some things just could not bear rebirth and they all knew that the day he went, so did his mind; with it went the enduring strength that should see him back. Some things were not meant to be reborn with the spring…

Three months had come to pass…

It is raining: a cool spring shower that slicks down the earth and sets the world awash in colors of budding greens and subdued yellows. The grass, assailed by tendrils of streaming midday sunlight, glistens emerald under the sun's gentle caressing. The trees stand majestically, their rough outlines blurred by the falling rain and their canopies loom above filtering the sun's light and causing little prisms of light to dance a happy jig along the softened earth. The first shower of the New Year.

_It is truly a beautiful thing to behold._

The crunch of fresh grass beneath heavy footfalls catches everyone's attention; a harsh sound among the quiet serenity of the day. All eyes turn toward the source of the misplaced noise but everything seems calm despite the disturbance.

Suddenly, the sun shifts to hide behind the tree line, throwing the area into shadow. A breath of discord runs through us — gathered as we are watching the forest come reborn in the shower — and another heavy footfall draws attention towards the mouth of the forest before us.

Slowly, and approaching so that shadows obscure any true shape it might possess, the figure emerges from the trees. For a moment the world grows utterly still — the winds stops singing through the trees, the birds fall quiet, breathing stills.

Another crunch of grass — another step in our direction.

There is a sharp breath to my left and a hardly audible, disbelieving, "Oh…"

A whiz of motion and a blur of color shoots through my peripheral vision and my eyes move in time to watch her launch herself at the approaching figure, hair streaming behind her as a whole silken sheet, limbs pumping frantically, neurotransmitters singing on high.

Welcome back, sings the blackbird.

Time seems to slow. I watch her fall into him, her weight collapsing around him, hiding what little of his silhouette the shadows have not already lain claim to. Hysterical sobs gouge the silence mercilessly, and as happy a sound as they are, they are sorely misplaced this day.

She is happy to see him.

But as he steps farther from the shadows, carrying her with him — her arms latched around his neck like a lifesaver as they are — and closes the distance between us, a pang of pain lances through me, and I can feel it work its way through the hearts of my companions beside me.

She sees him as she wants to see him.

We all see him as he is.

The hard lines in his face, worn in and embedded by years of enduring hardships no one should ever have to endure; the tightness of his lips as he offers a smile to us; the rigidness of his body as he struggles to accept the embrace of the woman attached to him, little more than a parasite in his eyes; dull eyes, haunted eyes.

"Oh, oh, Yuusuke… You're _back_," comes the muffled sob.

Only, this is not Yuusuke. Not an ounce of this person standing before us is the man she claims him to be.

I glance at my fellows. A quick meeting of eyes, crimson, brown, black and violet, and I know my fears are warranted. This man we are seeing is not the same that she sees.

For her sake, I hope she does not have to open her bleary eyes long enough to see it herself.

"I won't… have to… wait… anymore…" she continues.

Except, she really will. Because this is not who she thinks he is.

That man has yet to return.

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**_Author's Ramblings:_** People leave and people return. But you're stupid if you think they return the same person as they were when they left. 

In short: War makes every person ugly. Not necessarily in a physical sense.

So this chapter - this story, is a bit personal, if you know me and can see how it correlates to my being. Beyond that, the premiss for this chapter is found in the above two phrases. Basic point of this little story overall is a simple documentation of the human psyche and how drastically time, distance, and hell, can change someone.

Enjoi. (Review?)

Blackrose


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